The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media • Hacker News Board

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#251

Post by novok » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 9:04 AM UTC

glogla wrote: post #226

justanotherguy0 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Who cares? Like he said, this is far from the worst conflict going on right now and it receives a disproportionate amount of interest. I don't care about the conflict in china or in Yemen or in syria. Because I'm a coherent person, I also don't care about what's happening in israel.

Because being proud of lack of empathy and just ... humanity is pretty fucked up?

You literally do not have enough time to care about all the travesties in the world, you will just 'care' about them taking up all of your time while doing nothing to actually improve the world. You are 1 human of billions, you try to make the world better as much as one average human can. Which is for most people, raising their children well, being a good person and doing good work. You only have energy for one cause I like to say, it's up to you to choose it.

So beyond a general sense of "these things suck and I emphasize, but I don't have time to think about it", there is really not much else you should do beyond that if your not actually going to do anything about it other than read some media, feel some emotions and have opinions about something you have remote to zero experience in and zero power or desire to actually do anything about it.

And after that one, you have the other 100'000 small and large travesties to process.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#252

Post by pydry » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 9:27 AM UTC

mrow84 wrote: post #222

rayiner wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what I’m driving at. My point is that there is a reason Bangladeshis all learn about Israel oppressing Palestine but don’t care about other Bangladeshis being worked to death in the Middle East. There’s a reason that’s the thing that gets people’s attention compared to all the other human rights issues out there.

What do you think that reason is?

Maybe whataboutism. Why Bangladeshi whataboutism is supposed to be of interest to us I'm not sure.

Arab countries also use Israel to highlight the disingenuousness of America's supposed concern for human rights. Ironically not having it as an ally might make military interventions in the Arab world easier.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#253

Post by x4e » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 9:48 AM UTC

DavidPiper wrote: post #235

For people with almost (or absolutely) no contextual exposure to this conflict, can people recommend good sources to understand more about it and its history? My personal preference would be for book sources, and if it's a case of "no unbiased account", then book sources from both sides of the conflict.

I learnt about the conflict at school using this textbook: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Edexcel-International-History-Confl...

I found it quite good, however looking it up now I see there have been complaints about it: https://5pillarsuk.com/2020/09/10/middle-east-history-textbo...

I will say my even though my History teacher taught it without any visible bias, I got the impression she was more on the Palestinian side (as was most of my class).

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#254

Post by pydry » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 9:55 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #185

rayiner wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't know if there's maybe something to this analysis on a global scale (certainly I've got zero confidence in the good faith of Saudi and Qatari foreign policy), and it's absolutely the case that there's an insidious strain of antisemitism hiding in advocacy for Palestinians, but plenty of people I talk to about this problem are observant Jewish people; they're absolutely not antisemites, or getting "played", any…

>it's absolutely the case that there's an insidious strain of antisemitism hiding in advocacy for Palestinians

There's a rather more insidious strain of state supported Islamophobia and Israeli racial supremacy hiding in almost every trumped up accusation of anti-semitism.

It comes routinely from institutions who purport to speak for Jews.

For example, there's an institution named "stop antisemitism" who recently tried to offer money to dox a writer from The Onion for a joke that could in no way be construed as anti-semitic in any way, shape or form: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/the-onion-stop-antisemitism/

These people did not make a mistake. They weren't being incautious or overly zealous. They are simply racists.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#255

Post by throwaway_875_1 » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 9:59 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #43

werber wrote: post #20

As an American Jew who grew up with a distorted and racist world view in regard to Palestine this just feels like history repeating itself. The troubles that face Israelis have always been amplified over those of Palestinians in my experience. That control of the narrative led me to be actively racist for most of my life while thinking I was not and also morally superior. This kind of censorship has a body count, and…

As an American who moved here from a Muslim country let me assure you Muslims are socialized to feel the same way about Jews. Took me a long time to see it. In high school I obviously supported Palestine and thought Israel was a settler colony (all of it, not just Gaza). Then I realized: wait why do I even care? I’m from 3,000 miles away in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, people don’t even care about Bangladeshis being he…

You are a Shameless person

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#256

Post by poisonarena » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 10:15 AM UTC

user982 wrote: post #249

poisonarena wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you feel about Gaza launching 4000+ rockets at Israeli population centers indiscriminately ?

Clearly the Gazans need missile guidance systems to get their kill count down to Israel's levels.

Israelis shoot them down, would you prefer Israel don't shoot them down? Would that be more 'fair'?

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#257

Post by pvg » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 10:19 AM UTC

simondotau wrote: post #220

dang wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religious flamewar will get you banned here. Please don't post like this, regardless of whose religion you have a problem with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm confused why this post was described as "flamewar" as it's a single sentence of factually correct information.[1] The only part I'd take issue with is the use of the word "fable". Fables are succinct short stories which end in a moral lesson—and the apocalyptic Book of Revelation is neither short nor moral. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/14/h...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#258

Post by jgb1984 » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 10:19 AM UTC

Israel is an apartheid state. Stealing land and declaring a "jewish state" is no less criminal or insane than what isis / islamic state tried to do. Anti-zionism is not equal to anti-semitism. Just like I can criticize the USA without hating Americans, or criticize Iran without discriminating against muslims.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#259

Post by drran » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 10:22 AM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #50

rayiner wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American who moved here from a Muslim country let me assure you Muslims are socialized to feel the same way about Jews. Took me a long time to see it. In high school I obviously supported Palestine and thought Israel was a settler colony (all of it, not just Gaza). Then I realized: wait why do I even care? I’m from 3,000 miles away in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, people don’t even care about Bangladeshis being he…

This is what war has done in almost every conflict. The enemy is a monster so attacking the monster justifies far too much.

(Non-native English speaker)

It can be in two kinds:

a) they are DOING something bad: attacking, occupying, oppressing, blocking, so we need to stop them, kick them out, liberate from their oppression, break their block, etc.

b) they ARE (Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc., or a nation, or a group), and they are bad because (list of historical or invented reasons), so we need to kill or enslave them or force assimilation of them.

For example, recent Russian-Ukrainian war, from Russian side:

* Ukrainians are bad, because they are Nazi. Reasons: Ukraine is Nazi country because it is independent Nation, which is bad for Russian Empire/Soviet Union/Russian Federation. Thus: kill Ukrainians, close Ukrainian schools, magazines, sites, TV and radio stations, force Ukrainians to abandon Ukrainian culture.

* Ukrainian are oppressing Ukrainians, speaking in Russish. Reasons: nobody will speak in dumb Ukrainian language at their own will, when they can use Great and Mighty Russish Tongue (Великий и Могучий Русский Язык), so, obviously, Ukrainians are forcing Ukrainians to speak in Ukrainian language, AKA «forceful ukrainization»/«насильственная украинизация» (and Ukrainian language is dumb, obviously, because it causes laugh, when a Russish hear it). Thus: invade Eastern Ukraine to protect Russissh-speaking Ukrainians from forceful ukrainization (direct speech: «защитить русско-язычных жителей Юго-Востока Украины от насильственной украинизации»).

From Ukrainian side:

* Russians are invading Ukraine. Reasons: they want to destroy Ukrainian nation and make it part of Russian Empire/Soviet Union/Russian Federation. Thus: Ukraine must stop invasion.

Re: The blackout Palestinians are facing on social media

#260

Post by metta2uall » Sun, Jun 27, 2021, 10:29 AM UTC

user982 wrote: post #225

metta2uall wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Palestinian violence, especially by Hamas, is used very effectively to gain international sympathy for Israel and to excuse violent & unjust policies. A much greater level of non-violence from the Palestinian side would result in far stronger international pressure, and also domestic American pressure.

> A much greater level of non-violence from the Palestinian side would result in far stronger international pressure, and also domestic American pressure. The 2018-2019 Gaza border protests ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Gaza_border_... ) began with extended peaceful demonstrations and dancing by Palestinians. This was met with live fire from Israel, maiming tens of thousands and killing well over…

Of course that was gross criminality & basically mass murder from the IDF side, but they still used the excuse of Hamas using the protests as cover to attack, to breach the border, to fire flaming kites, etc. Nevertheless there was quite a significant international response and loads of reputational damage to the IDF. The difficulty is that the non-violence has to be deep and prolonged.. The current leadership of Hamas controlling Gaza makes things extremely sad/difficult & is a great gift to the Israeli militarists..